Private sector employees signed up in DOST-Coursera program
“Over fifty percent of those who enrolled in the DOST-Coursera program are employees, and over half of these (54.4%) came from the private sector,” said DOST-Caraga Program Administrator Engr. Noel M. Ajoc.
DOST-Caraga’s partnership with Coursera’s Workforce Recovery Initiative Learning Program, which intended to provide learners access to thousands of courses from top universities and organizations worldwide, was participated in by 75,000 Filipino scholarship grantees.
The top courses based on enrollments were COVID-19 Contact Tracing; Work Smarter, Not Harder: Time Management for Personal and Professional Productivity; and Excel Skills for Business Essentials.
According to one of the grantees, “Through the program I expanded my knowledge on how to analyze and present my biodiversity data that would make it more meaningful and more impactful.”
Of the 30,140 courses completed that were related to science and mathematics, the most number of completions were in Health (28.7%), Computer Science (25.3%), and Information Technology (21.8%).
“Python programming is one of the most favorite courses of the program,” Ajoc said.
However, this new mode of learning poses some challenges particularly with regard to the state of internet infrastructure in the country. “The most common problem for learners is internet connectivity. Unless the coverage of high-speed internet access is improved, remote areas will have problems accessing MOOCs courses,” Ajoc further said.
Moreover, some in the health industry also benefited from the program. One grantee, a freelance writer, who writes about mental health and climate change, said that the course taken under the DOST grant helped build a more concrete foundation for the advocacies being written about, and also provided updated knowledge on the latest developments on various science issues.
The regions with the highest number of scholarship grantees/enrollees are the National Capital Region (31.4%), Regions IV-A (20.9%), and Region III (9%).
Following the success of the Coursera Workforce Government program, DOST-Caraga allocated funds under the Grants-in-Aid (GIA) for a project that will provide 270 online learning accounts to DOST personnel and partner agencies, institutions, and private sectors in Caraga. More than 90% of the new slots are already provided to more than 30 partner agencies, institutions, LGUs and MSMEs.
Coursera is a web-based online learning platform or Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) with professors from several universities to give everyone access to quality education without the expense of a traditional college or university.
The Coursera backed program is one of the S&T initiatives of the Department of Science and Technology that will be featured during the Big 21 in 2021 launch on September 7, 2021, 10:00AM, to be broadcast live via the DOST Philippines Facebook page. (Geraldine Bulaon-Ducusin, DOST-STII)
